Price of a Victor
by RayneSummer
Summary: The ones who survive the wars never leave the battle. It stays in their eyes until they are gunned down, motionless, prone, as a 12 year old girl decorated with flowers. Whose soul is free as a Mockingjay's, resting, deep in the meadow.


**Universe:** The Hunger Games, Catching Fire

 **Note:** _I know I haven't written in ages, and I'm sorry. Just been struggling recently. I have been into the Hunger Games, and have shared in Katniss' grief for everything that she is, everything the world around her is. So here is a story that just flowed out of that thinking._

* * *

Katniss Everdeen, one of the two victors of the 74th Hunger Games, lies on her bed in the house that she and her family were given after she was crowned when she won the Games.

The bed is not particularly comfortable, but everything here is so many miles better than anything they ever had or dreamed of, so Katniss does not bring up how out of place she feels.

Primrose, her sister, and their mother are fully installed in this house now, in the few months since they moved in. Both wanted no more from the Games than their beloved Katniss back, yet the Girl on Fire herself wished for nothing more than to die as herself, bravely, proudly, fighting. Like most of the other Tributes in the Games. In all the Games in the last 74 years, after the Dark Days.

Like those tributes. Like Peeta wanted to. Like Thresh did. Like Rue... like Rue did.

As the thought crosses her mind, Katniss immediately reacts to the mental assault of memories, enough to release carefully controlled tears. She curls up in a ball on top of the bedcovers, as if that small move can at all protect her from the onslaught of unforgiving thoughts, like shots fired across a plain.

Rue, so small and clever, so nimble and pure, and so destroyed by the Games that her mere memory is too much of a rebellion to be dared brought up for long. The flowers that Katniss adorned her lifeless, so small, form with are branded forever in the minds of those whose hearts were captured by her.

Katniss lets out a whimper as she thinks about Rue, curled up tight in a protective ball on her bed. It's not enough. The assault begins.

Rue, stealing Cato's knife in training, leaping from tree to tree so lightly that barely a branch shook; a leaf rustled. Little Rue, who helped Katniss defeat the Careers that had her trapped, not caring about the threat to her own precious life. And sweet, sweet, Rue, who will forever be branded in Katniss' mind as curled in the netting that caught her, the spear thrown by Marvel buried so deep in her stomach that even Katniss could not bring herself to tell the 12 year old that it would be alright.

The words to a song that soon spread, because it meant so much. Promising tomorrow will be better than the awful piece of time that is called today.

Her four-note Mockingjay tune. The one that means the safety of both girls, just pawns in the Capitol's Games. It echoes around in Katniss' mind, reminding her again and again of how much innocence was lost. How Rue was too young, too gentle. How Prim has had to grow up. Had to watch her sister be hurt and hunted without being able to lift a finger to stop it.

The thoughts of Prim begin to calm Katniss down, as only her sister's presence can. She lifts her head a little, and silhouetted in the doorframe by the weak dawn light filtering through the uncurtained window, stands the one person in the world who she truly loves.

"Prim," Katniss whispers. Her voice is hollow with despair, but laced with such need and love that she doesn't have to lift a finger before Prim is beside her, sitting on her bed, brushing her hair back, trying to smile through forming tears.

"Shhh, I'm here. Hush. Do you want me to sing?"

So young, so innocent, and so lost. Katniss feels so weak beside her sister's pure strength. Her sister, who is asking her if she needs the sweets songs that their father used to weave through the Meadow air, too many years ago to remember.

And too, too, many to forget.

Kaniss shakes her head, not trusting her voice. A single tear slips down her face, and she closes her eyes in a weak defence; as weak as the ball she is still curled into.

Prim understands. She doesn't need her sister's protection much any more. The moment Katniss stepped forward to volunteer for her, she knew their bond was eternal. No such gameplay of the Capitol could ever keep them apart indefinitely.

So the innocent girl, yet so grown, smiles through her own falling tears, and gently, softly, kindly, massages her sister's limbs from their protective position, and makes sure Katniss is comfortably lying on the bed, leaning to the right.

Katniss is barely conscious now, able to lift her defences just for one moment, just for her sister's care. Prim tucks a loose strand of hair away from Katniss' face, and takes a blanket at the foot of the bed.

Carefully, gently, she drapes the wool over her sister's prone form. She pauses just long enough to brush Katniss' cheek and whisper "here it's safe, and here it's warm..."

She leaves the words, lyrics from such an important, sweet, song, hanging in the air. Dawn begins truly rising, and the light from the waking sun streams into the room, just as Katniss finally drifts off into sleep, finally disarmed.

Prim kisses her sister's cheek once, and turns. She sees their mother standing at the doorway now. The two just look at each other, both mourning the loss of Katniss. They still have her, of course, but her soul is trapped by the Capitol. Just like a rabbit in a snare. Tighter and tighter until it dies.

For this is the price of a Victor. It is not survival. It is murder. Their souls never leave the arena. They are buried there, forever, trapped with those who died because of the cruelness of those who do not feel.

The ones who survive the wars never leave the battle. It stays in their eyes until they are gunned down, motionless, prone, as a 12 year old girl decorated with flowers. Whose soul is free as a Mockingjay's, resting, deep in the meadow.

And the ones who still live, close to wishing they, too, were safe and warm in darkness' welcome arms, instead of being alive in such days as these.

This is no place for dreams. Only nightmares are here.

There are no victors. Only those who run.


End file.
